Media Junkies; Is Nature The Cure?
Picture, if you will, a lush forest. Majestic trees surrounding a newly paved road. A creek babbling over rocks, reflecting the emerald hues of the leaves. A popular late model SUV speeds through this peaceful scene. The father looks over to his lovely wife and smiles. Then he checks his rearview mirror as the children in the backseat look up from their onboard DVD screen showing the latest piece of cartoon animation. Does this scene sound familiar? Do you see any flaws? Or does this seem like a normal family outing? To many people this is a great family trip. I grew to love the outdoors as a child. I remember running through the streets swinging a Christmas-paper-roll sword at imaginary pirates invading my ship. But what about the children in the back seat? Engrossed in their movie missing the beauty and wonder that is only a window away. How will this affect them?
As childhood obesity skyrockets and prescription for attention deficit hyperactive disorder, ADHD, are handed out more and more; maybe they are missing something important? Is alienation from our natural settings the cause? Every day people grow farther and farther from their natural environment. Are fear of abduction, strict neighborhood committees, and just the convenience of having your children occupied fair substitutes for the lessons we as children learned from rugged outdoor play? In Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, he tries to answer these questions. Louv coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” as a concrete cause for the recent surge of childhood maladies. Children need to reconnect to nature with natural, unscheduled play in order to combat this growing epidemic.
In my 31 years life I have seen media take on a dramatic evolution. I remember watching “Little House on the Prairie” with my grandmother on this huge television that covered most of the wall in its oak chest. Today I get TV through high-definition satellite, I type this paper on a personal computer that sends messages faster than I can think, and I talk to family and friends on a telephone that I almost mistook for a candy bar one day. By the beginning of the 1960’s most homes had a black and white TV set, Technicolor movies were seen in the theaters, and the US Postal service was the most efficient way to communicate over long distances (“Generation M: Media in the Lives on 8-18 Year-Olds” 1). That seems eons ago when we have the massive amounts of media that we have today. In the first half of the first decade of the twenty-first century we have broadcast, cable, and satellite TV, the TV remote control, the VCR, the DVD, print media (books, newspapers, magazines), audio media (CDs, IPODs, walkmans), personal computers and their online capabilities, cell phones that connect to the internet and do most of what any digital screen will do (1).
We cannot forget the massive amounts of money that is spent every year to research and develop new and more exciting forms of media. In the past half decade children with computers in their home has increased by thirteen percent, and the number of children with web access has increased from forty-seven percent to seventy-four percent. Ninety-nine percent has a TV in their home, seventy percent has computer game consoles, and sixty-nine percent has a personal computer in their home (1). With this massive amount of media being consumed by our children companies have began to devote more resources to producing content explicitly aimed at this age group (2). All of this media consumption has raised serious questions in the scientific community about how children spend their time, content children are exposed to, and how this exposure affects their lives (2).
So with children consuming more than sixty hours of media a week what are some of the dangers that they are being exposed to (Louv 2)? Senator Clinton emphasized that parents are faced with two major challenges. One is the challenge of monitoring how much media a child is using, and two the content of the media being used (Clinton 1). Great strides have been accomplished in warning parents about the content of video games, movies, and TV shows. But what about the content of the internet, instant messaging, and music downloads? Senator Clinton says that parents responsibility is crucial but they need to be armed with the tools from industries to keep up with the ever-changing media landscape (2). Media also keeps kids indoors. An alienation from natural settings has sparked new research about the affects of over-media on children. Research and anecdotal evidence has shown that an alienation to nature has been linked to a number of childhood maladies. These include attention-deficit disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obesity and depression (Wiser 1). For the first time in American history sales of drugs for ADD and childhood depression has surpassed spending on antibiotics and asthma medications (O’Conner 3).
However, media is not the only blame to children being confined in the indoor spaces. Parental fears about traffic, abduction, diseases (West-Nile, and Lyme disease), has shrank the area children are allowed to roam to about a ninth of its size 20 years ago (O’Conner 2). Structured play ingrained in school activities, dance practice, and little league sports has taken away from the unstructured play that allows imagination to flow (2). Government and insurance liabilities has chased children down from the tree tops, keeps boy scouts from fishing due to the harm to animals (2). City and neighborhood regulations that tear down tree houses, that children have built with their own time and money in their backyards, because of not having a building permit (2). Have we legislated the fun out of childhood? Through our “good-intentions” we have made outside fun a thing of the past.
Some people may ask whether nature really is a big deal. Does it really affect people that much? Scientists and doctors who have studied the problem say yes. From the beginning of mans existence a connection with nature has been established. A feeling if you will that being in natural settings relax and reinvigorate us. This feeling, called Biophilia, of love for living things governs many aspects of our lives. Doctors believe that this craving for natural settings when satisfied help to relieve stress and overcome emotional blockages that we pick up from our day-to-day lives (Flanagan & Flanagan 1). Pulitzer prize winning biologist Edward O. Wilson believes that people have a mechanism called genetic memory imprint that drives this need to commune with nature (1). This need has developed many interesting phenomena. For example, people are more afraid of snakes and spiders than handguns. Our yards look like savannahs that our earliest ancestors came from (2). We associate beauty and fertility with the color green perhaps because we link that color of vegetation with the promise of food, water and ultimately survival (Brown 1).
When psychologist Rachel Kaplan, PhD, switched offices at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, she immediately and profoundly felt the difference of having an office view over-looking treetops instead of the barren look she had before (Clay 1). The affects she felt encouraged her and her husband, Stephen Kaplan, PhD, to begin studying the effects of nature on people, and they have found over the decades: Green is good for you (1).
The Kaplans and other psychologists have been exploring the benefits of nature on people’s mental functions, social relationships, and physical well-being. Others are beginning to put that research to practical use in interior design, architects and city design (Clay1). When people consume massive amounts of media in the urban environment they work what is called directed attention (2). This is the attention you use when reading a book, watching TV, or driving a car. Over stimulation of direct attention can cause impulsiveness, distractibility, and irritability (2). Using your direct attention fatigues you through over use (2). When in a natural setting that allows you to use your automatic attention you become more rested (2). You don’t have to be in the woods to enjoy the resting effects of nature. By having views of nature helps just as much (2). Most modern buildings now have atriums that you can go to, or more windows that offer a natural view. One study that Rachel Kaplan performed showed that workers in an office building with a view of nature performed better, had fewer sick days, and had a higher overall morale (2). Frances E. Kuo, PhD, is performing studies on children in the Robert Taylor Homes, the country’s largest public housing project, in Chicago. These studies show the difference of children who live in buildings with a view of a green spot, not what most people would call natural setting maybe a tree or some patchy grass, and those who are surrounded by barren concrete (3). This limited amount of nature non-the-less has great impact on the children who live there. Children who live in the greener environments had greater capacity to pay attention, and are better able to delay gratification and limit impulsiveness (4). Some other studies Kuo did showed that children who suffer ADHD, in middle-class settings showed fewer symptoms after spending time in green surroundings rather that engaged in indoor activities or in non-green outdoor settings(4).
Studies done by Roger S. Ulrich, PhD, director of the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M University, gives strong evidence that nature can help heal the body too (Clay 4). He, Dr. Roger, found that patients who had a view of nature outside their window left the hospital faster, had fewer complications, and required fewer pain pills (4). Heart patients, recovering in intensive care units, with pictures of natural settings had less anxiety, and required fewer pain medications (4). What these studies have shown is that health-care facilities, should incorporate features such as, nature views, and nature related art in the rooms, atriums for patients and workers to relax in, and aquariums in waiting areas (4). These features will help to relax patients, staff, and the families of the patients, especially during some of their most stressful times of their lives (4).
A view of nature is not the only part of the equation, noise also plays a factor. Gary W. Evans, PhD, a professor of human-environment relations at Cornell University, studied the effect of noise pollution (Clay 5). In a study done with first and second graders he found that children attending school near airports score twenty percent lower on their word recognition tests (5). In an office environment clerical employees when exposed to conversation and other office noises experienced higher stress levels and quit on performance tests faster than in a quiet room (5). So, along with the visual effects nature also plays on our sense of hearing.
Joseph B. Juhasz, PhD, believes that alienation from our natural environment has caused a nationwide epidemic of depression. “What we desperately need is connection with our blood and soil,” says Juhasz, a professor of architecture and environmental design at the University of Colorado in Boulder (qtd in Clay 5). Doctor Juhasz has suggested a new theory on how to battle what seems to be a losing battle for our connection to nature (5). This idea is to make cities that are longer and thinner than cities that are fat and round so people do not have to travel as far to visit natural settings. Psychologist Judith H. Heerwagen, PhD, is a consultant to designers, companies and others where she is trying to find ways to make people more psychologically comfortable by naturalizing work and school interiors. By using abstract designs of natural patterns such as branches on ceilings and natural patterns in flooring instead of geometric shapes she hopes to show that it gives the same affect on people as actually being in nature (6). “Once you start thinking about it, this kind of design makes perfect sense,” says Heerwgen. “We didn’t evolve in a sea of gray cubicles” (qtd in Clay 6).
With the research being done on naturalizing interiors perhaps our children will perform better in the classroom. As a community we must band together to get legislation dropped that inhibit’s the natural play of our children. As parents we need to monitor the amount and content of what media our children are exposed to. Natural parks and play areas should be encouraged where possible. Children need excursions away from the hustle and bustle of urban, even suburban areas. I challenge parents to turn off the TV, unplug the video game, log off on the computer, and plug into nature. The convenience and ease of the modern world to keep our children indoors is a poor substitute for the physical, psychological, and spiritual well being of our children